


the best loves in life come in threes

by indemnis



Category: K-pop, Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Bad Flirting, Coming Out, Crushes, F/F, Flirting, Gen, Genderbending, Multi, Other, Past Showki, Polyamory, Requited Love, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 14:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15414996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indemnis/pseuds/indemnis
Summary: When Lee Minji turns up for her first day at university, all the signs Lesbian Goddess has laid out for her seem to point to two gorgeous girls who appear disinterested in participating in the joyous occasion of homosexuality.





	the best loves in life come in threes

**Author's Note:**

> this story is less hilarious than the actual summary. wish i had that many strokes of genius in the course of writing this monster. hope you like it!  
> p.s. will have typos/grammatical errors, may/may not come back to fix them  
> p.p.s this fic could have been better named as "indemnis satisfying their gay desires but also writing about their biggest gay woes rip"

Love at first sight sounds like such a cliche way of falling in love with someone, but if you were to ask Lee Minji how she had found herself so irrevocably and irreparably in love with Yoo Yeojoo, that would be how she did.

It wasn’t even anything special. It wasn’t as if Yeojoo was out in the rain looking over some abandoned kittens and appealed to Minji’s empathetic side. It wasn’t like she was caught crying on the rooftop about some random crush who wouldn’t spare a look in her direction either.

The reason why and how Minji fell in love with Yeojoo was on her first day to her new university, where she had found the girl kicking the vending machine with all her might while cussing at the inanimate object. That side swerve she delivered smoothly to the machine awed Minji.

There was just something so unbelievably _hot_ , the way she spared no mercy to the machine, and followed it up with strings of expletives, and Minji was smitten.

She had only gotten to know of Yeojoo’s name during her first Wednesday tutorial: Introduction to Korean Literature, and she was there, in all her glory, chatting and laughing with a boy who looked twice her size.

As the tutor read out the names of the people in class, Minji kept a lookout for her, and was delighted when she raised her hand at ‘Yoo Yeojoo’, knowing that she now had a name to draw heart doodles of.

The rest of the class went by pretty uneventfully, the tutorial more descriptive about the unit’s contents than anything else, and Minji soon found herself sketching Yeojoo’s side profile, a sharp jaw and unblemished skin.

Minji spends the rest of the week wondering if she gets to meet her in any of her other classes, but disappointed to find out that Intro to Korean Lit seems to be the only one where they share a class.

She did, however, find an acquaintance in a boy named Lee Jooheon, who had these killer dimples and a friendly demeanour, and they became friends quickly. Jooheon was a first year, just like her, and took a liking to her immediately when she lent him a pen in one of their Creative Writing electives.

It turns out that Jooheon takes a few of the same classes with her, and Minji had never been more glad to have found Jooheon to have lunch with. (She’s lying, she would be more glad if only she could have lunch with Yeojoo, but no one expose her.)

So she may or may not have developed a crush on said girl, stared at her in class and sometimes if she caught her in the cafeteria, glanced as she swept her long straight hair to the side, looked as her beautiful eyes turned into crescents when she smiled, tiny dimples showing at the tip of her cheeks, her teeth pearly white.

And really, when people typically talk about love at first sight, or love in general, it was only natural for them to refer to one (1) single person.

Yet Minji found it impossible to resist the force that was Chae Dodo, strutting into the lecture room like she owned the whole place. And that she did, for when she entered, the boys all wowed none too subtly, and started talking within themselves in hushed whispers.

The beauty had missed the first week of class (how Minji found herself in the same class as both her and Yeojoo was a miracle, and a blessing) and somehow found it appropriate to sit herself in the seat beside Minji.

She stared, naturally, because it wasn’t every day that someone so beautiful found their way next to her, and Dodo seemed to have noticed her scrutiny, because she’s half-standing now, shooting Minji a quizzical look.

“Oh, does someone else sit here? I can move if --” Her voice is a little high-pitched and nasal, and Minji keens. She wants to listen to her speak all day, but Dodo’s eyes are large and anticipating.

“No, no!” She tries her best not to shout, but in her hurry to keep her there, she reaches out to hold onto Dodo’s thin wrist, her fair skin soft to the touch.

Minji stares at the contact and drops her hand, as if there was a flow of electricity running through her, and apologises profusely. Dodo just laughs, her pretty heart-shaped lips folding up into a lovely curve, and Minji curses herself for staring again.

Minji is suddenly acutely aware of how lucky she is to be a girl (with an obvious look of infatuation on her face and hearts in her eyes, but _pfft_ , detail schmetails), because if she’d been a guy, surely Dodo wouldn’t have taken kindly to the physical contact. She could probably just come off as a touchy new female classmate, to be honest.

Which begs the eternal question of all lesbians: how the hell does one prove that they’re interested in girls and aren’t being affectionate because girlfriends, but because _girlfriends_?

“It’s okay!” Dodo says, slotting herself back into the seat, easing into it comfortably. “My name’s Dodo. Chae Dodo.”

Minji blinks, but takes the cue, and smiles. “Ah. I’m Lee Minji.”

“Nice name,” she says kindly, and proceeds to brush her fringe out of her face, and pulls out a notebook from her bag. It’s neat, clean, unlike Minji’s notepad filled with drawings of dogs and the occasional practice at calligraphy.

Minji is tracking each and every single one of Dodo’s movements, how her long fingers pick up her pen, stretching out her arm, the small peek around her surroundings from time to time.

“Can I… help you?” Dodo asks softly, taking furtive peeks at the lecturer who has his eyes on anyone that looks like they would be troublemakers. Minji reddens.

“Oh, oh no! No, there’s nothing. I just… I just space out a lot I guess. Sorry.”

Dodo chuckles, and it sounds like music to Minji’s ears. “It’s okay. I do that a lot too.”

Minji smiles back, freaking out inside, wondering how other people _talk_ to her. It wasn’t that she was intimidating -- in fact, the constant smile on her face settled Minji by impossible amounts -- but more so of the fact that she didn’t look _real_.

She looked like a Barbie, like those dolls you’d find on the shelves in toy stores, only this one moves and blinks and talks like a normal person, and Minji is shaken to her core.

Dodo pushes her hair to her left side and bends over the table as she takes quick looks at the screen before them, Minji having no intentions of paying attention in class anymore. She hears the chatter around them, and more burning gazes in their direction, and she sneers.

Dodo laughs. “What’s wrong now?”

Minji presses her lips together. “Those guys are leering at you. It’s disgusting.”

Dodo didn’t seem to have even noticed the attention she was garnering, and she looks up from her notes briefly to stare around her. The chatters dissipate immediately, and the boys return to pretending like they’re listening in class. Dodo chuckles lightly.

“It’s okay, just ignore them,” she says quietly, spinning the pen between her fingers as she writes a few more words on her notebook.

Minji huffs, but not enough to sound irritated. “You must be used to it, I guess.”

Dodo’s head shoots up, and she looks at her briefly. “What do you mean?”

Minji laughs, at a slight loss for words. “I hope you’re kidding. Have you seen yourself at all? You’re gorgeous, and I’m sure you get a lot of stares wherever you go.”

Dodo raises her eyebrows, and Minji doesn’t understand the fuzzy feeling accumulating in her chest. “Oh. That’s what you meant.”

“Yeah.” Minji blinks unevenly, and Dodo just smiles again, the ends of her lips pulling up, her eyelashes flitting over her eye bags. Minji has to remember to breathe.

“A lot of them are unwanted looks, so I don’t really care for them.” She starts drawing mindless strokes on her notebook, and Minji stares, wide-eyed, not sure what to respond with, so she just mumbles, “well that’s because you’re super pretty.”

And of course Lesbian Goddess hates her guts, because Dodo hears her loud and clear, and her reply is a simple ‘cute’, which is fodder for Minji to freak out over during the next 43 minutes of the lecture.

After the lecture, Minji and Dodo part ways and say their goodbyes, their ‘see you next week’s, and Minji can’t help the pang that widens in her chest. Jooheon flicks her on her arm when she looks listless during lunch, and she cradles her chin with her palms, elbows on the table.

“She’s just… beautiful, you know. Possibly the most beautiful person on Planet Earth.” Minji stares dejectedly at a group of boys playing basketball, and Jooheon puts an assuring arm over her shoulder. “I thought that’s what you said about Yeojoo just two days ago.”

Minji’s pout intensifies. “That’s because they are both beautiful and my heart is wrecked and I want them to both know just how much I adore them.”

Jooheon blinks. “Anyone told you about possible obsessive behaviour?”

Minji punches him in the arm, Jooheon yelping in pain. “Shut up, asshole. If you can’t relate to my intense lesbian feels then you need to stop shaming me.”

“Okay, okay, sorry. Are you going to chat her up the next time you see her?”

Minji whines, buries her entire face in her hands and shrugs. “I would love to, but what would I _say_? ‘Hi, I love you, and want to marry you, as well as an equally beautiful and ethereal being known as Yoo Yeojoo, so like uh, choose a date?’”

Jooheon guffaws, and Minji’s groans grow louder. “Maybe don’t do that.”

Minji scowls. “You heteros have it too easy, I swear to God. All you need to do is just do this weird eyebrow hiking thing, do some dumb wink, ask for her number and it’s like you’re already holding a neon sign to tell her that you’re interested. I have to break down the walls and find out if she’s even _gay_ , and then figure out how I tell her I want to date her and shower her with compliments without her thinking that I’m just some straightie who’s just being nice?”

Jooheon tries his best to stifle a laugh. “Look, I’m not saying we don’t have it easy, but that’s one hundred percent definitely not the way to flirt. Raising eyebrows, stupid wink? What do you think this is, a damn rom-com?”

“Heck if I know.”

She returns to sulking as Jooheon chuckles at her. Minji stabs at the chicken breast on her plate and wonders if there will be a time and place where she gets to hold both girls in her arms.

The thought brings a flush to her cheeks, and Jooheon teases her again, the boy quickly shut down by her and her palm across his face.

Well, a girl can dream, right?

*****

Alright, so maybe Minji has calculated wrongly. She had imagined Dodo to be That Bitch, the way she swayed her hips as she sauntered into the lecture room was a huge decoy, because she was in fact, absolutely charming and lovely and is still That Bitch, but Minji thinks she’s The Amicable Bitch.

(Then again, Minji is utterly and completely blinded by love, so her words can only be taken with a grain of salt.)

Yeojoo on the other hand, spicy and sassy and absolutely ruthless, is exactly how she’d imagined her to be. (Minji refuses to admit that she has a thing for confident, haughty girls who know they’re the shit.)

Classes have just ended, and Minji bids farewell to Jooheon who’s staying behind for a group project, one that Minji knows is going to happen in her Intro to Lit class, and she wonders if the planets will align and her Lesbian Goddess will come through for her, and by some voodoo magic stuff, she’ll end up being in a group with either one of them.

The Heavens blessed her with both their existence in the same class -- surely they mustn’t be cruel enough to have them be in groups with sleazy males that ogle over them every other second. (Minji does a fair bit of ogling, too, but she’s allowed, because girls are beautiful, and she is the best judge of beauty.)

Her backpack bouncing off her back, Minji makes her way to the bus stop when a tall man towers over her with a grin that makes her skin crawl.

“Uh, um, hi. I’m uh, Jon.”

Minji narrows her eyes. He looks like a foreign student, and his Korean is in pieces, and while she is the Goddess of Friendliness, there’s something about that glint in his eyes that unsettles her.

“I, uh, am in your Creative Writing class and I just --” He scratches the back of his head, and she cocks an eyebrow at him. “I think you’re really cute, and I wanted to get your number.”

Minji stops herself from rolling her eyes. Trust her to start attracting men (she blanches) during her third week of university. What was it with men not realising that she was as gay as unicorns puking rainbows?

Minji smiles, tight. “That’s cute and all, but I like girls. So I’m flattered, but no thanks.”

She gestures to leave, but he stands before her again, his tall frame hovering over her, and she frowns in distaste. “What? No, that’s impossible.”

She sniffs. “Don’t think I needed you to define my sexuality for me.” She turns to leave again, but he’s there, like a shadow clinging onto her, and Minji is holding onto the self-defense alarm on her bag, ready to pull it when the need arises.

“But you’re so…” he gesticulates to all of her, her in her frilly lacy skirt, her neat and well-tidied hair in a pretty bob, and the pink blush on her cheeks, the red tint on her lips, “girly.”

Minji blinks. “And you need a lesson on social constructs.”

He grins. “You’re not just saying all of this just so I’ll back off, are you?”

She doesn’t resist the urge to roll her eyes so far back they almost roll into the back of her skull. “And so what if I am? Isn’t that enough motivation for you to move the fuck away?”

She may be a little frail (because Minji has no time for _exercise_ ) and maybe she hadn’t taken up taekwondo lessons, but she has sharp teeth, and she’s not afraid to use them.

Jon seems to see the aggression in her eyes, and if he was even a little intimidated, he doesn’t show it. “Well, are you sure? I could be the guy to change your mind. Maybe you’ll like men a little more once you’ve been with one.”

Minji feels the fire burning within her, pulsating through her veins, and she’s ready to blow. She contemplates on whether to pull the alarm or to punch his stupid face or to make a run for it, but before she’s able to make up her mind, there is a warmth behind her.

She freezes. She hadn’t really considered the true danger of the man before her, and surely he isn’t gutsy enough to find a group of friends to abduct her in broad daylight, is he?

Her finger around her alarm, she’s ready to set it off when a nasal voice that could belong to only one person rings around her entire personal space, and she doesn’t know why it does, but it relaxes her.

An arm around her waist, Minji looks up to see Chae Dodo smiling at her, her beautiful set of teeth on full display, and her bangs covering her left eye. She’s dressed in the cutest fluffy sweater with a pug in the middle, and her disposition just screams soft.

“Hey sweetie. You ready for our date?” Her eyes are bright, and she blinks slowly, a little spark in them that Minji catches immediately. “Yeah sweetheart. I’m just dealing with… some stuff.”

Dodo’s forehead creases when she throws a look of utter disgust toward Jon. “And this is?”

Minji smiles. “Jon apparently is from my Creative Writing class.”

She pretends to be surprised, which would elicit a laugh from Minji if it wasn’t for the fact that she’s currently saving her ass, and also the arm around her is very, very warm. “Oh hi! Did you need Minji for something? It’s just that I made a reservation for us at this place downtown, and we’re kind of running late.”

Jon’s eyes are glinting with a different light now, and he eyes Dodo from head to toe, takes in her silky long hair, her pretty large eyes, her legs that seem to go on forever, and he hisses.

“You’re a fucking lezzy, too?”

Before either of them can muster the words to yell at him, an insult is thrown in his direction haphazardly, a much shorter frame marching towards them, screaming expletives.

“Excuse me? You absolutely dipshit of a human fucking being, say that again, I fucking dare you, and I’ll snap your short thick neck into two. You won’t need your head anymore since you only know how to use the disgusting one below, will you?”

Slowly coming into sight is Yoo Yeojoo in all her feisty demeanour, her hands in the air like a cranky old lady as her face is contorted into an expression of sheer condescension. If Jon wasn’t scared off by Minji and Dodo, he is now, by a girl almost half his size, waving her hands aggressively at him.

He bundles off without an apology, and Dodo and Minji are staring as he leaves, chipping in a curse word or two at his back, now that they’ve finally gained the courage with the help of Yeojoo.

The shortest girl stands by them with her hands on her hips, she squints as the man runs away cowardly, and tries to catch her breath. “There’s no need to be civil with scum like them. He’s the third guy this week I’ve tried to fend off of poor uni first years who didn’t want unsolicited conversations.”

“Ouch.” Dodo chirps, and Minji is suddenly hyper aware of the arm around her waist. The tall girl doesn’t appear to move away anytime soon, just smiles at Yeojoo with stars in her eyes. Well, it is a little difficult _not to_ , considering she’s just come to their defence valiantly, all with fire burning in her, which is frankly a very attractive quality to have.

And Minji suddenly realises what this is -- her two crushes standing around her like it’s normal, like this was just a page out of their daily lives, and she can’t help but freak out. As if sensing her unease, Yeojoo steps closer, and Minji can smell floral on her. Ugh, as if she needed any more brownie points.

“Hey, it’s okay. You look a little shaken. Do we need to bring you to the clinic?”

Minji doesn’t tell her that she’s the reason why she’s so unnerved. Dodo seems to catch on quickly and slips her hand away from her waist, and she almost whines outwardly at the lack of contact.

“N-no, I’m fine, thank you!” Her face is blushing a fresh shade of red, and Dodo is dangerously close to her. “Are you sure?” The back of her hand landing on her cheeks, Minji is certain she’s about to combust right here, right now. “You do look very feverish.”

Minji jumps away from her quickly, doesn’t miss the hurt on Dodo’s face. She winces. “No, I’m okay, sorry, I just -- yeah, I’m sorry, it’s fine!”

Yeojoo snorts in the corner. “Eloquent.”

Dodo just laughs, doesn’t say anything. Her gaze is gentle, and Minji’s heart lurches for her.

“Uh, I’m Yoo Yeojoo, first year, second sem. Member of the Self-Defense Club. You guys can swing around if you’re interested.” She seems very full of herself, a smug grin on her face, and Minji only softens around her, finding her so damn adorable. It’s interesting how someone of her sheer size has the ability to break bones.

“Chae Dodo. First year, first sem. Not a member of any club; I’m too emotionally invested in my bed to bother with co-curricular activities.” There is a wide smile on her face that makes Minji’s heart skip beats, and she presses her lips together until she realises it’s her turn for an introduction.

She scrambles to set herself straight. “Lee Minji. First year, first sem, and I think we’re all in the same Intro to Korean Lit class. Not a member of any club, but if there was one for the Gays, that’ll be where I belong.”

Dodo looks at her in sheer amusement, Yeojoo in bewilderment, and Minji realises what she’s just said. She just… came out so casually to her two crushes, in public, unapologetically, and fuck, she knew she had a problem with filtering her words out, but this was a next-level screw-up.

Well, at least she’s resolved the whole ‘how do I tell the both of them that I’m a Gay and that I do Gay Things and sometimes I don’t just compliment girls because they’re cute, but because they’re Cute™’ problem.

“Shit. What the fuck, Minji.” Her eyes the size of saucers, Minji curses at herself under her breath, and Dodo breaks into throes of laughter, her shoulders moving up and down as she does. How is it that everything she does is so pretty?

Throwing her arm over her shoulder, Chae Dodo smells like a hit of a sweet, fruity scent, and Minji is knocked backwards from the proximity. “It’s okay. You can be our cute little gay friend.”

Minji doesn’t know if she should be offended by the statement, because God knows the number of girls who have squealed at her coming out and told her that they would ‘love to have a gay best friend’. Minji is not a rare collectable and they don’t need to have the full set of 12 to unlock some secret Gay Friend Award.

(Also, she has had crushes on about ¾ of them, and their ability to be so completely oblivious had driven her up a wall.)

She doesn’t express said discomfort, however, because the more overwhelming fact is that Dodo has her arm around her shoulder, pulling her practically against her boobs. Minji tries not to think about the well-rounded mounds of flesh on her chest.

Yeojoo seems to find some degree of entertainment in this, because soon she is sneaking over to Minji’s left side, and throws her arm over her other shoulder. There is definitely a deficiency in her oxygen intake right now.

“Well, you’re cute, so I’m all onboard. I don’t have many female friends, so if you guys don’t mind the occasional karate kick at pervy boys, I guess we can have lunch together?” Yeojoo’s voice is gentle, smooth-flowing, a huge contrast from her carefree and boyish demeanour, and Minji most certainly has stars in her eyes now. (Also, she called her cute, which in hetero language means adorable, but Minji can deceive herself into thinking she means Cute™, and she can live with that.)

And so by some odd twist of events, Minji finds herself squished in the middle of the two most gorgeous girls she’s ever set her eyes on, and wonders if she should curse or thank Lesbian Goddess.

*****

Okay, so maybe Minji was wrong and Dodo _is_ who her name says she is: an arrogantly superior character (and rightfully so, Minji adds, because she is so impossibly beguiled) filled with contempt for all other peasants who dare set their eyes on her.

She came to the conclusion that Dodo really did like her on first glance, because she is nothing but sweet and kind to her, offering her pretty smiles and pleasantries. She doesn’t, however, have the same patience for the men who flock around her like pesky flies, and swings her arm in their general direction whenever she has the chance.

So really, it’s not entirely Minji’s fault that she thinks Dodo is leading her on, whatnot with those soft touches on her arm, the way her eyes disappear when she smiles, or how she laughs exclusively at Minji’s jokes.

On the other hand, she would ignore the boys who pass her love letters by the corridor, timidly sneak chocolates by the desk she always sits at in class, appear out of thin air with a stalk of a rose.

The response is always a tight but apologetic smile as she makes a swerve around and away from them, her face lighting up only at the sight of Minji or Yeojoo.

Minji feels a tightness in her chest whenever that happens, wondering if she’s overthinking things, or if Dodo really just sees her as a very good friend. And while that’s lovely, and Minji does adore the way she sneaks her phone under the desk just to show Minji a high-quality meme, it’s not quite enough.

How Dodo becomes a complete softie around Minji and Yeojoo, she’ll never understand, but better them than the perverted men that click their tongues as she struts past them, or wolf whistle in her general direction when she flips her hair.

Yeojoo defends Dodo’s honour well by sending them death glares when they do so, but a few of them have piqued their curiosity about the feisty girl with the small stature, and instead of cowering away from her, they started sending her random gifts and confessions, too.

But it was as if the both of them were blind towards their advances. Surely they would have found someone that caught their eye amidst the sea of male university students that fought for their attention, but it was something that was never brought up.

Maybe they were hyper-aware of Minji’s (homo)sexuality, or maybe they just had so much bullshit to talk about, but the conversation never really got around to boy crushes or boyfriends.

Their timetables slightly off, Minji only spends three out of the five days with them -- Mondays with Yeojoo, who shares a similar break time with her, Tuesdays with Dodo, who enrolled into one of her classes at the last minute, and Wednesdays, where the three of them share a break in between the lecture and tutorial for Intro to Korean Lit.

The rest of the week is spent in dejection and with Jooheon, who claims that he is starting to feel like a backup option for Minji, a claim she is not ready to deny.

Saturdays and Sundays are days off from university, but apparently not from the constant thoughts about Yeojoo and Dodo and the conversations they shared during the week.

And so it seemed like the planets aligned after all, because the three of them have ended up forming a group for their literature project on a critical analysis of some poem (Minji is a Visual Arts student; Literature is nothing but white noise to her).

They’ve decided to stay behind for a bit to delegate tasks and to decide who does what, and really, they should have gotten someone more disciplined to look over them, because what it is is that they’ve just spent the last hour chatting about their favourite lip tints.

In the midst of Dodo’s fervent recommendation of Peripera's lip tints, Yeojoo takes a quick glance at her phone, and her eyes widen. She jumps up from the chair, startling her two classmates, and grabs her satchel bag immediately.

“Shit, I’m running late. I’ll text you guys in the group chat, okay? I need to dash,” she raps, and both Dodo and Minji can only nod dumbly before she flashes them a quick smile and runs out of the room.

Dodo returns to her impassioned discourse on lip products, but Minji turns around curiously to follow Yeojoo’s departure.

A crease finds its way between her brows when she catches sight of Yeojoo waving to a boy, and realises that it’s the same guy she was sitting beside during her first tutorial.

Her surprise heightens when she sees Yeojoo hooking arms with the boy, and there is a spark in her eyes that Minji can only see half of, and her heart does a painful little pinch. It’s a look she’s never seen before, and the thought of a side of Yeojoo that’s reserved for a single person that isn’t Minji makes her insides turn.

“Hey. You okay?” Dodo’s voice resonates within their tiny discussion room, and Minji turns around to face her concerned expression, and she breaks into a smile. “I’m fine. Where were we?”

*****

 **Minji  
** hey girlies  
our um,  
convo today wasnt very constructive, was it?

 **Dodo  
** >:/  
Look  
I hear the shade in your tone  
You cannot, I repeat, cannot, start talking about lip tints  
And not expect me to give you a full list of my favourites

 **Minji  
** i get that  
but this damn thing is due in 3 weeks  
did we need the lip tint discourse

 **Dodo  
** Wow  
Lee Minji is cancelled

 **Minji  
** bitch, rude

 **Yeojoo  
** there there  
we’ll just have to meet up again tomorrow then

 **Dodo** ****  
I don’t even have class tomorrow!  
Are you seriously making me go to campus just for this assignment

 **Yeojoo  
** Well  
did you or did you not begin a debate on lip tints

 **Dodo  
** Do you always have to be such a smart ass

 **Yeojoo  
** its not my fault u keep evading the truth, honey

 **Dodo  
** I hate you  
: <

 **Yeojoo**  
love u too honey boo  <3

 **Dodo  
** Shut up  
I hate you and your stupid face

 **Yeojoo**  
when’s the good time for me to remind you that i have a black belt in taekwondo  
and could snap your slim little torso into half if im not careful

 **Dodo  
** Well  
Be more careful then, sweetie

 **Yeojoo**  
but i don’t want to  
i want to bend ur skinny twig-like frame into two

 **Dodo**  
Why don’t you try me, shortie!  
As if you can reach high enough to even get to my torso!

 **Yeojoo**  
WOW U LITTLE SHIT

 **Minji**  
guys  
assignment

 **Dodo  
** I’ll let you off this one just because of Minji  
Minji, my favourite

 **Yeojoo**  
ur a horrible person  
it’s amazing

 **Dodo**  
Thanks honey boo  <3  
Hate you too!

*****

Minji understands the importance of their friendship one night, at 1:24AM, when her phone lights up, and the vibrations shake her awake. She blinks blearily at the screen, wondering who could be texting her so late at night, when she widens her eyes completely as she sees a message from Yeojoo in their group chat.

 **Yeojoo  
** hey i know its late  
and i didn’t want to bother the both of you  
i’m just a bit emo rn  
and a little drunk  
will probably regret this tomorrow morning  
but if any of you are awake  
can you talk to me???

Minji scrambles up and tucks her blanket under her arms before shooting out a reply.

 **Minji**  
hey sweetie  
what’s wrong?

The reply is instantaneous.

 **Yeojoo**  
oh! Minji!  
sorry i wasn’t expecting either of u to reply to me this late  
what r u doin still awake?

 **Minji**  
just watching a netflix movie  
why r u emo?

She figures she’d lie, if anything to make Yeojoo feel a little better. She didn’t think Yeojoo needed to apologise for asking for a bit of company when she’s feeling down.

 **Yeojoo  
** it’s nothing much really  
I  
uh  
broke up w my boyf today

Minji stills. She blinks multiple times at the screen just to make sure she’s read it right, and chews on her lower lip as she considers what to say. She’s never been good at this consolation thing (heck, she didn’t even _know_ Yeojoo had a boyfriend, though she has had her suspicions), and especially not when she feels mild excitement at the fact that Yeojoo is single.

 _No_ , Minji thinks, _she needs you right now. You’re not supposed to consider the possibilities between you and her when she’s probably feeling miserable._

She’s about to reply when she sees the ‘1’ beside Yeojoo’s message disappear, and another response is in the chat immediately.

 **Dodo  
** Is there someone I need to beat up?

 **Yeojoo  
** as if your skinny ass could do any damage to anyone

 **Dodo  
** Then is there someone I need to be telling off?  
Because I’m told I can be very ruthless with my words

 **Yeojoo  
** well, that would be me you’d be telling off  
i broke up with him

 **Dodo  
** And you regret it?

 **Yeojoo  
** worse  
i don’t even feel bad about it

 **Dodo  
** How’s that something to feel bad about?  
Feeling bad for not feeling bad?

 **Yeojoo  
** he was sobbing  
hes a grown man  
this tower of a man  
180cm and all  
and he was asking me why  
crying  
asking what he did wrong  
and i couldn’t even feel bad about it  
I just… dont love him anymore?  
and it was shitty of me  
idk i just  
idk?

 **Minji  
** oh i’m so sorry sweetie  
anything i can do to help?

 **Yeojoo  
** it’s ok  
i’ll get over my lack of empathy soon  
it just makes me wonder how much of a heartless bitch i am

 **Dodo  
** It’s nobody’s fault the relationship met its end  
All things fade and grow bland if you put it through time

 **Yeojoo  
** no it’s nobody’s fault  
but i wish i cared a bit more about him?  
and like  
he was my boyfriend since high school  
i should be capable of more emotional attachment?

 **Dodo  
** Sweetie  
Are you sure you loved him?

 **Yeojoo  
** tbh with u?  
idk?  
we kind of got together in high school bc people thought we would  
bc he really liked me and  
i didn’t mind?  
they would tell us that we looked good as a couple  
and we probably did  
but on hindsight i dont know if i actually did invest any of my emotions into him?  
he was nice to me  
comfortable  
but i’m not sure if it was… right

 **Dodo  
** Then all the more you shouldn’t blame yourself  
If he was never the right person to start with

 **Yeojoo  
** mm  
maybe  
u know  
i’m really glad i got to know the both of u  
maybe we’re not really bffs (yet)  
and maybe me and twiggy always bicker and argue  
but u girls are such blessings  
and i love you two always  <3

 **Dodo  
** Wow  
A sappy Yoo Yeojoo  
Who would’ve thought this day would come

 **Yeojoo  
** bitch  
dont make me take back everything i said

 **Dodo  
** You wouldn’t  
You love me too much

 **Yeojoo  
** …  
bc i am mildly intoxicated and tonight is a fuck-the-rules kind of night  
yea i love you n ur skinny twig ass  
and ofc the sweetest kindest loveliest gaymeister lee minji

 **Minji  
** thanks  
glad to know my significance in this group is to be the gay lordess

 **Dodo  
** Bitch  
At least you’re not the twig

*****

Unaffected is the word to describe Yeojoo the next day. She turns up with an obvious lack of sleep, considering she was taking a hot bath and downing four glasses of wine at 1:30AM.

But her emotions seem to be running fine, and when Minji catches sight of her, she pulls her in for a hug immediately. Yeojoo appears slightly surprised, but ends up wrapping her arms around Minji’s back, and presses her face closer to Minji’s collarbones.

“Well, good morning to you too,” she drawls sleepily, and Minji squeals internally at how perfectly she fits in the space of her arms.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Well, if your definition of ‘better’ is a pounding headache and the inability to focus on anything, including my self-induced guilt-tripping for more than five seconds, then yeah, I’m feeling a lot better.”

Minji pouts, and rests her chin on Yeojoo’s scalp, listens to her breathing evenly, and she tries her best to not press a small kiss against her forehead.

“Why did you even come to uni?” Minji asks, and Yeojoo seems to settle entirely in her embrace, letting out a sigh that she’s held in for too long.

“One, I have a class. Two, I hauled Chae Dodo’s ass over even though she doesn’t have a class, so she’ll have my neck if I didn’t show up. Three, I’d rather have the both of you distract me than stay at home and rethink the thirty things I’ve done and not done that make me a heartless asshole.”

Minji breathes shallow. “The asshole bit, maybe a little.” She yelps when Yeojoo slaps her on her arm, but she chuckles and regains herself, falling back into her position. “But not heartless. You’re anything but that.”

Yeojoo frowns, bitter. “You really think so?”

Yeojoo doesn’t question Minji’s status as her three week-old friend, doesn’t argue with her on her claims, just seeks affirmation, again and again, and Minji is more than happy to give it to her.

“Of course!” she says, but she doesn’t add the bit in her that resounds loudly: _I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you otherwise._

Because what Yeojoo needs is a good friend and a pair of strong, supportive arms, not a flimsy, meaningless confession that only amounts to a truckload of awkwardness and a broken friendship.

Minji stuffs her romantic feelings into a box and throws out the key, and reminds herself to not go looking for it.

*****

Dodo is sprawled over her living room with her long limbs _everywhere_. Everywhere she looks, Minji finds an inch of skin that belongs to either Dodo’s legs or arms.

And really, it should be a blessing more than anything else, except for the fact that they’ve just spent the past 2 hours doing a house tour and going through Minji’s makeup collection instead of actually doing work. Now that she’s trying her best to focus, she has a whole Chae Dodo to distract her from the task at hand.

“So, what do you think we should add on Slide 4?” Yeojoo is sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back against the sofa, and she’s frowning intently at the computer screen.

Minji doesn’t think she’s allowed to look so good when she’s so frustrated, but Minji is slowly coming to terms with how absolutely smitten she is with the both of them, so none of this comes as a surprise when she feels personally offended at how good either of them look at any given time.

“I dunno. What do you think?” Minji asks, stretching her leg and jabbing Dodo with her foot. The taller girl scowls as she spanks Minji’s calf. She rolls on her back as she lets out a lazy groan, and throws her hands above her head.

“I have no damn clue,” she says, glancing at Yeojoo who’s still staring at the computer. “Answers aren’t going to appear even if you stare harder at it.”

Yeojoo glares. “You’re the one majoring in Korean Literature; I can’t believe you’re completely useless.”

Dodo huffs. “Well, sorry, Miss Music Major, it’s literally my first sem, so I don’t know what the heck is going on, or what you’re expecting of me.”

Yeojoo looks like she’s momentarily stunned by the extremely logical argument, but it’s not like her to not put up a fight. “Okay, but surely you must like it enough to come up with ideas? Surely you must be better off than a music major,” she gestures to herself, then at Minji, “and a visual arts major.”

Dodo whines, but does roll back onto her front and props herself on a cushion that she grabs from the sofa.

“Alright, I guess I’ll take a look at it and see what I have.” She sighs as she pulls her own laptop over and reads the slides they have worked on for the past few days, and Minji should be paying attention to the Google Slides she’s making edits on, but instead she can only focus on how Dodo’s long and thin fingers are dancing over the keyboard. Her lithe movements as she types furiously, the furrow in her brow.

Deciding that it’s getting a little too much, she turns away, and sees Yeojoo driving daggers into her screen with her cheeks all puffed up and her lips forming a prominent pout. Danger lurks everywhere -- Minji is never safe from her own mind.

Excusing herself to the bathroom, Minji tries to clear her mind and reminds herself that Dodo just thinks of her as a cute little gay friend, while Yeojoo has just broken up with her boyfriend.

And perhaps the most important bottom line here is the fact that they’re both as straight as arrows, while Minji is the bow.

And really, Minji has had straight friends before -- surprise, I know, because somehow gay people have the tendency to converge -- but none that make her feel quite so right. Sure she’s had crushes on the straight pretty girls she’s friends with, some she was comfortable enough to come out to, others she enjoyed looking from the sidelines.

But Yeojoo and Dodo created such synergy, formed a dynamic that was both playful and supportive, and Minji often found herself just observing the way they interact, mingling with them and participating in their little verbal duels.

It’s like she’s slipped right at home, Yeojoo and Dodo there with open arms, waiting to hold her. It is perhaps the perfect relationship she’d always envisaged, but instead of a girl, there are two, and her heart expands twice as much to stuff the both of them in.

But of course the so-called perfect relationship is but a myth, and Minji would be lucky to find even one that she considers above average.

The mind wants what it cannot get, and Minji tells herself off for a few more seconds before returning to her living room, where she wears her most genuine smile, all while concealing her most genuine feelings.

*****

The presentation is in hours, and despite the late-nighters and the copious amount of energy drinks, Minji feels as uncertain as when she’d first started the project.

Yeojoo’s mind seems to be equally occupied, and Minji only realises her anxiety when she catches her playing with the hem of her plaid skirt as she looks at the ground wordlessly. Dodo has gone to make a copy of their slides in the computer labs, and Minji feels a huge boulder on her chest. The pressure from giving her first presentation in university is overwhelming, and she thinks she might throw up.

And yet the sight of Yeojoo, beautiful, pretty Yeojoo standing right there, chewing nervously on her lower lip makes her heart ache in ways she can hardly describe, makes her want to push down the anxiety boiling in her and instead pull her into her arms. The urge is so strong it hurts.

She should say something, but what? Minji is shaking a little herself, and if she has to utter words, she might end up throwing up like she said she would.

Trusting her instincts a little better than her words, Minji scoots closer to Yeojoo, and without a single skip in the beat, she picks up the hand closest to her -- Yeojoo’s left -- and wraps her long fingers around it.

Yeojoo’s head snaps up at the contact, and Minji bears witness to the way a slow pink flush spreads across her neck, her ears and onto her cheeks, her eyes wide in surprise.

Still opting to not put her faith in her words, Minji just grips onto her hand tighter, and shoots her a small wink, a look of assurance, affirmation, and encouragement, and Minji jumps when Yeojoo starts to tear up.

“Oh God, oh God, Yeojoo, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“No, no, I’m fine!” she babbles, and starts to hiccup, placing her hands over her face as tears stream down her fair cheeks. Minji knows the true meaning of flustered as she ransacks her bag for the packet of tissues, and fishes it out immediately when she finds it.

Pulling a single sheet out, she dabs gently beneath Yeojoo’s tear-filled eyes, and she stares at her for a long, long time, wanting to read her mind, wanting to know what bothers her, what keeps her up at night.

And Yeojoo holds her gaze for maybe two seconds before she bursts into tears again, and Minji holds her together, giving in and pulling her in for a hug.

Yeojoo was so… strong. She would be the last person between the three of them to cry (as much as Dodo denies it, she’s a bit of a Drama Queen, and dog movies always make her emotional), and Minji hadn’t even imagined that this day would come.

Still sniffling in her arms, Minji pats her softly on the back, stroking her long hair slowly as she hums lightly under her breath.

The smaller girl falls slack in her embrace as she relaxes, and realising just how embarrassing she is, pushes herself away from Minji, looking away sheepishly. Minji’s arms are still in the position of a hug, and she drops them at the lack of the warmth and weight.

“I’m really sorry --”

Minji offers a tight smile. “Don’t be.” Reaching out with the tissue, she wipes at Yeojoo’s eyes again. “What’s wrong?”

Yeojoo’s voice is small, worried, and Minji can’t help the frown that appears between her brows. “It’s nothing.”

“Doesn’t seem like nothing to me.” Pressing her lips together, Minji picks up both of Yeojoo’s hands in hers, the smaller girl still evading her gaze. “Tell me. You know I’m safe.”

And Yeojoo did know Minji was safe. Heck, having Minji around was the safest she’s ever felt, and not in the physical sense, because Yeojoo could deliver a neck slice as well as she could do an over-shoulder flip on a grown man twice her size, while Minji is lazy and doesn’t exercise, and eats chips and burgers all day.

No, Minji made her feel safe in the way that she understood her well, how she would Skype Yeojoo at 2AM, knowing that the smaller girl had the tendency to stay up to finish her assignments, both urging her to sleep, yet helping to keep her awake by making small talk as Yeojoo toiled over her essays.

Or how she would bring an extra lunchbox from home for Yeojoo for after practice on Thursdays, because she knew she didn’t like to train on a full stomach, and got her mum to prepare snacks for Yeojoo to have on the ride home so she wouldn’t starve until dinner.

It was these tiny things that made Yeojoo feel like she maybe didn’t deserve a friend like Minji.

“It’s silly.” She waves an arm in her own face, and stares down at the floor at her feet. Minji doesn’t want to push for fear of making the girl cry again, but Yeojoo wiggles her toes in her sneakers and keeps her head hung low.

“I think it’s all coming to me.” She pauses, swallows, and continues staring at the ground. “That whole fiasco with my ex. I think I’ve finally realised that it hurts.”

Minji is silent. She’s never been good with relationships -- her previous ones have all been messy and dragged along until the both of them couldn’t tolerate each other and had everything explode in their faces. As she kept being pushed past boiling point, her emotions splayed over like a wild display, and she never could reconcile with any of her feelings, only anger and frustration taking over in a spurt of a moment, and then disappearing as suddenly as it appeared.

“Guess I’m not heartless after all,” Yeojoo states calmly, pressing the tissue Minji had offered against her nose, and taps her feet softly. “And I don’t know, uni work? We have a presentation in hours? And my thoughts have been all over the place lately, so it’s probably just stress.”

Minji feels almost useless, the way she can’t offer a single word of consolation at the time Yeojoo needs it the most, but Minji has always been smart with her mouth only when she doesn’t need to.

“I’m sorry” is the best she can muster, and Yeojoo looks up from her shoes to stare up at Minji, letting out a soft huff.

“It’s okay. I mean, I kept it down for so long, surely I’ll live through it now.”

Minji presses her lips together tightly. “Maybe you shouldn’t keep it down, then.” She glances at Yeojoo, and focusses her gaze on her chin instead of her eyes.

Yeojoo snorts. “Coming from the most emotionally constipated person of the century.”

Minji scowls, doesn’t know why she’s ever left such an impression on Yeojoo. “Am not.”

Yeojoo seems to be hiding a huge secret behind her still-wet eyes. “Definitely, one-hundred percent emotionally constipated.” She jabs a finger at Minji, smiling a little, and at the exact moment the tall slim girl returns with a USB in hand.

“Who’s constipated, and why are we talking about poop before our presentation?” Dodo asks, throwing her arms over her two shorter friends, tilting her head to the left -- Minji -- and then to the right -- Yeojoo.

“You’re disgusting.” Yeojoo makes a face, and Dodo frowns. “Hey, you’re the ones talking about constipation!”

And while the topic is still kind of unhygienic and unnecessary, Minji is happy for the distraction. As the two squabblers glare each other down while still invading each other’s personal space, Minji is glad that it has served its purpose as a distraction for Yeojoo, too.

*****

They owned the presentation. As was expected, but then they did better than expected, considering that they whipped the slides together in full coherency a mere five hours before the presentation.

(Minji credits this on her ability to bullshit through any situation, and while Dodo and Yeojoo are not keen fans of fanning her ego further, they can’t deny that that is most certainly the case, and the reason why they’d managed to sound smarter than they really were during the Q&A session.)

Yeojoo comes out of the lecture hall looking like she’s lost a few years on her lifespan, while Dodo just seems pretty smug that they had overperformed. Minji can almost see the way the sigh of relief leaves Yeojoo’s body, deflating her like a leaking balloon.

She knows Yeojoo has the tendency to stress over the most menial of things, and while it isn’t necessarily the healthiest habit to have, she thinks it’s the way Yeojoo copes with most things, and is happy to leave her be.

And they’re more or less happy to have completed the presentation, but then Yeojoo is shaking, like belated stage-fright, and then she starts to tear up again.

Dodo is the first one to see her tears, and she walks over without a single word. Minji doesn’t know what there is to do. She knows it’s just stress, and it’s probably just tears of relief and joy, but Yeojoo looks so small as she cries silently. And then Dodo’s tall frame envelopes her whole, a sobbing Yeojoo against her chest.

“Why are you crying? You should be happy we’re done with it, silly.”

“I’m h-happy -- _hic_ \-- that it’s done?” Yeojoo offers lamely, and Dodo rolls her eyes as she pulls her closer.

“Then you should be treating us to ice cream, not crying here like it’s the end of the world,” Dodo says, and while she’s right, Minji is standing there nervously, wringing her hands together as she wonders how Yeojoo will take it.

Turns out she takes it just the way she’d expected her to, which was to hit Dodo lightly on her arm before huffing, disgruntled. But she does calm down a little more, and Minji works on instincts entirely from here.

She moves closer to the both of them, and without overthinking her choices and decisions and how impossibly deep she’s dug her own grave, she widens her arms and tries to cover as much of the both of them as possible in her embrace.

Neither of them appear surprised at the sudden contact, in fact Minji feels Dodo leaning into her hold.

“Pretty girls like you shouldn’t cry,” Minji whispers quietly into Yeojoo’s ear, the statement not gone unnoticed by the ever-feisty Chae Dodo.

“Your gay is showing, Minji,” she mock-whispers, and Yeojoo trembles a little in both their arms as she laughs quietly.

“Thanks, it’s who I am as a person, bitch. Accept it,” Minji retaliates, and the both of them laugh, Yeojoo sniffling lightly as she manages to wipe all her tears with the back of her hand.

They stand there hugging a little awkwardly, right smack in the middle of the corridor leading from the lecture hall.

The warmth is so inviting, Minji thinks she could sleep right here, in the comfort of both their touches, in the mildly delusional headspace she’s allowed herself to create, thinking that they liked her just as much as she did them.

That is, until Dodo speaks up, but none of them seem to have the intention of pulling away.

“Hey, uh, be honest, we’re not the kind of horrible groupmates that pretend that they’re cooperating and amicable and having a good time working on a project, only to fuck off straight away after it’s done, right?” She sounds worried, even though Minji can’t see her face, and the fact that Dodo is _worried_ about them not being friends anymore is somehow endearing.

Yeojoo wipes at her snot with the back of her hand, and Minji makes a face. “Well, to be honest, I was this close to ripping your damn head off your long ass torso for all the work you did and didn’t do for the project, so having a good time? Negative. Cooperating and amicable? False. And seeing as I didn’t enjoy working with you two losers at all, I guess I won’t be fucking off any time soon.”

There she is again, fierce and aggressive Yeojoo, the one Minji had fallen in love with at first sight, though Minji has grown to love the myriad of facets Yeojoo has to offer, adding each and every one of her characters and personas to her collection.

Dodo sulks, and Minji guesses she’s rolling her eyes, but she can’t see -- she’s too busy burying her face in the gap between the two closely-attached bodies. “Gee, thanks, I really needed that motivating little push after our extremely intense presentation.”

They laugh it off, because they’re still stuck to each other like a weird compound of bodies, physically intimate, all while spitting words sharp enough to rip them all new necks.

Neither Dodo nor Yeojoo were going to go back to being strangers any time soon. Minji doesn’t know to cheer or to cry, because while it raised a beacon of hope in her tiny heart, it reminded her that the pain of being around two beautiful girls whose hearts she could never come to have was only going to be prolonged.

*****

It’s Wednesday, which is Movie Night, and thanks to the constant raving of film fanatic Miss Lee Minji, the trio are stuck with watching Star Wars.

“Okay, that’s really fucking stupid. How did this Obi-Wan guy just _casually_ decide that he was going to help the Princess lady? Also, Han Solo? Wasn’t he super adamant on not leaving the control station? And then Luke puts up a horribly unconvincing argument, and he buys it? Is it just me, or are the characters in this film all unnervingly naive?” Dodo munches on a bowl of chips as the credits roll, and Minji huffs as she crosses her arms before her chest.

Dodo had already started sharing her two cents’ worth in the first ten minutes of the film, and maybe she had realised just how frustrated Minji was with her, so she kept quiet, only jabbing Yeojoo in the ribs, showing her how well she can roll her eyes when she found something ‘absolutely ludicrous’ in the plot.

Yeojoo was silent throughout the film, laughing at the right times as Minji did, and she really did appreciate her sitting through it like a cultured adult (unlike Dodo, who has no movie manners).

“It’s just you, I promise.” Yeojoo nudges Dodo in the side with her foot.

She’s lying on her back, sprawled sideways over Minji’s bed. She sits back up and picks up her mug of hot chocolate.

“I thought it was pretty good. And I mean, complain about the quality all you like, but Jaws was considered a masterpiece of its time with those styrofoam sharkies, so being able to dish this one in the 1970s,” she looks briefly at Minji for confirmation, and returns to her point when Minji nods, “is a pretty big deal.”

If someone needed a definition of the word ‘admiration’, they now only need to look at Minji’s stare in Yeojoo’s direction. Damn. Get yourself a girl who’s cute, protects you from sleazebags, _and_ appreciates Star Wars.

Refusing to share those same traits is Chae Dodo, who merely sticks out her tongue at the both of them childishly, but Minji knows she’s still whipped for her, Star Wars fan or not, because Dodo steals a piece of hair tie from her bedside stand and puts her hair up in a tall ponytail, and all her snide remarks die alongside the Death Star.

Neither of them complain when Minji slides between the both of them after loading the second CD, and she ignores the little tongue clicking sounds Dodo does. Nestled safely beside Yeojoo’s smaller frame and practically in the arms of the taller Dodo, Minji doesn’t know if she can fully focus on the movie. Not that it’ll be much of a problem, considering she’s watched it one too many times.

She likes to think they’ve gotten closer. They still see each other in their Intro to Korean Lit class, but perhaps the mini conversation they’d had outside the lecture hall with a snot-filled Yeojoo had been some sort of revelation.

It was almost like that moment had solidified their friendship, and the usually reserved Dodo started to be more touchy-feely.

Yeojoo was always one for the physical contact anyway, only she seemed to hike it up another level, and to say that Minji loves it is an understatement.

She’s overwhelmed too, sure, but to be constantly around the tangy, fruity scent of Chae Dodo or the mildly floral scent of Yoo Yeojoo can only be a thing of her dreams. And now she has both. Which is a bit of a crazy thing, but she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

With Dodo on her left and Yeojoo on her right, Minji buries her face into either side from time to time, sniffing in their fragrances, pressing her lips against their forearms. She thinks she feels Dodo shiver under her touch and she smiles, leaning in closer.

Surprisingly, Dodo keeps quiet during the whole movie, only making soft huffy sounds at certain parts, so Minji kicks her calves under the duvet, which effectively shuts her up.

Yeojoo on the other hand looks completely captivated by the movie, her wide almond eyes gazing blankly at the screen, her lips slightly apart. God, she’s so cute, Minji wants to gobble her up in a single bite.

Halfway through the movie, Minji hears Dodo yawn softly, and when she lifts her head, she sees the taller girl’s eyelids growing heavy, a small pout on her lips. At the realisation that Minji’s staring at her, she blinks herself awake, and looks at her with a cocked brow. Minji smiles, and then the smile spreads itself on Dodo’s face, too.

“Minji, can you pause it for a sec? I need to use the washroom,” Yeojoo whispers, and Minji looks away from Dodo briefly, pressing on the button as Yeojoo’s warmth leaves her side.

She looks back up at the brunette, whose large eyes have somehow found their way closed once more, and she pokes her in the arm. “Hey.”

Dodo rouses. “Huh?” She smiles sleepily. “Hey.”

“Do you wanna sleep? You look tired.”

Dodo yawns. “No, I’m fine, I can watch some more.”

Minji chuckles. “You look like you’re about fall asleep in the middle of your next sentence.” Minji shifts herself higher up the bed, until her shoulder is aligned with Dodo’s. She pats on the space on her shoulder.

“Do you want to sleep for a bit? I’ll wake you up when it’s over.”

Dodo laughs, but she does slide down a little to rest her head on Minji’s shoulder. “That kind of defeats the purpose of a movie.”

“I know, but Yeojoo is halfway through the movie, and she seems pretty interested to keep going.” She cocks her head to the side, until her cheek is pressed against Dodo’s ear, and the brunette hums lowly.

“Well, if you insist, I guess I could have some shut-eye.”

“Sleep.” Minji’s voice is calming, and Dodo closes her eyes gently, her breathing even and soft. They stay like that for a while, and Yeojoo returns from her break. “Hey, play the -- is she asleep?” She points accusingly at Dodo, who has drifted off into dreamland almost completely, and Minji nods, putting her finger on her lips.

She pats Dodo’s head as she opens up her other arm, Yeojoo sliding into the space easily. She holds Yeojoo tight against her right, all while stroking the brunette’s long hair gently.

“You know how she is with sleep.” Minji looks at her pointedly, and despite the small contemptuous huff she makes, she thinks she sees a spark of what can only be tenderness in her eyes. She stays silent, curling further into Minji’s embrace.

Minji feels the rush of emotions slushing through her in a rupture. Like the inflationary epoch. Like it was nothing, and then all of a sudden everything. Exploding into existence, making itself known as the universe, and then constantly expanding. How is she supposed to put this into words?

How is she meant to express the equal amount of infatuation she has for the both of them, besotted without a single trace of doubt?

She opts to not express them at all, and jabs at the Play button on the remote. Yeojoo slides herself further up Minji’s frame and her eyes are wide with wonder as she watches lightsabers zap across the screen. Minji wants to kiss her, so _so_ badly, see how she’d react, if her cheeks would blush, and if she’d kiss her back.

But Minji is also not ready to deal with the repercussions of the other side of the deal, and the last thing she wants is for Movie Night to end with Yeojoo pushing her away and never talking to her again.

*****

For her whole life, Yeojoo likes to think that she is a person with clear-cut choices. A girl who knows what she wants, an independent female who knows her likes and dislikes. Grey areas rarely exist, and discerning the black from the white and the right from the wrong has always been one of her strong suits.

Her tangled business with Hyunwoo was… unexpected. She hadn’t really thought much about it -- didn’t allow herself to -- and didn’t really know what to make of it. Hyunwoo was good. He was comfortable, strong and secure and safe, and Yeojoo went along with it. There was nothing to dislike about him -- he had nice shoulders, he was handsome, a good kisser, and his eyes curled into the prettiest crescents.

But perhaps Yeojoo hadn’t considered the possibility that she wasn’t in love with him as much as she was in love with the idea of him, of having a relationship, of having a shoulder to cry on when the going gets tough.

In the days following their break-up, Yeojoo found trouble with mustering sadness. It isn’t fair to be so calm. It isn’t fair to Hyunwoo, the way he had cried in front of her like a child, and asked her if there was anything he could do to fix them.

But there was nothing to fix. Hyunwoo wasn’t the problem -- Yeojoo was. Her problem was with not putting her heart into the relationship to begin with, and not staying true to herself by pulling out the inevitable split.

For a fleeting moment, Yeojoo even wonders if she’s capable of emotions at all, a not-too-silly assumption to come to, considering Hyunwoo is her first and longest relationship, and that turned out to be a farce anyway.

So when Minji held her hand and gave her the cheesiest wink, Yeojoo doesn’t know why something in her breaks. Something in her pours over like a gush of rainfall in the wave of comfort that Minji offered in that split second, and she wants so badly to just cave in, to face her rawest emotions.

There’s something she can’t pinpoint about Minji that makes warmth spread over all of her in a light, soothing manner. It’s probably the radiance of her smile, or how she lets Yeojoo press herself into her side without a single word. And yes, she probably bears some degree of resemblance to Hyunwoo in how they look out for her wordlessly, but Hyunwoo never managed to make her so… excited.

It wasn’t Hyunwoo’s fault of course; Yeojoo has established the fact that Hyunwoo is a wonderful man with nothing to critique, and Yeojoo is the one who cannot for the love of God gather more emotional attachment for him.

Maybe it’s how long they’ve been going out for. Maybe Yeojoo is a sucker for novelty, enjoys the fun and the brilliant and the humorous. Maybe Minji is both safe and interesting, and maybe Yeojoo finds herself putting way too much effort in her outfit and makeup before any of her meetups with her and Dodo.

Maybe. Just maybe. Things aren’t always black and white, and maybe Yeojoo is okay with that, if the grey areas are marked with Minji’s name.

*****

“Yoo Yeojoo, you’re getting your ice cream everywhere,” Dodo reprimands in a stern voice, and the smaller girl lifts her eyes to stare at her bewilderedly.

Vanilla stains the left side of her lip, and she sticks out her tongue in an attempt to lick it off, but she’s never been one for accuracy, and misses it completely. Dodo clicks her tongue in annoyance and stands up to lean over the table, napkin in hand.

“How do you eat like a child? You’re like, twenty years old,” the girl with the long hair mumbles under her breath, and Minji watches the both of them in sheer amusement. Dabbing softly at her skin, Dodo presses her lips together in a tight line, and Yeojoo keeps herself very still.

The oldest of the three observes them slowly, all while pushing fries into her already-stuffed cheeks. The ends of her lips pull up subconsciously. Yeojoo is staring blankly at the space before her, and Dodo is almost like a concerned parent, spoiling and worrying about her child round the clock.

Looking at this scene suddenly makes Minji realise just how well they fit. They obviously adore and cherish each other, and while they have their fill of incessant bickering, they know that all three of them wouldn’t hesitate to stand up for one another when the need arises.

 _If only they were gay_ was Minji’s first thought, and then she feels bad for even considering it. How could she be so selfish? They were good this way, as friends, and Minji isn’t sure how much of it actually comes into play, but she does believe that her coming out as a lesbian at their first meeting contributes to their being comfortable around her.

Why, she doesn’t know, but girls seem to flock around her, especially if they’re straight and know that Minji would never even consider liking the same boys as them. (But Minji wants the attention of the gay ones, yet those never come along frequent enough.)

So like she always does, she looks on quietly, swallows all of her bitter feelings and suppresses the loud sirens going off in her mind, and smiles.

Dodo plops back into her seat, and Yeojoo’s face flushes the lightest tint of pink. “Thanks,” she says softly, and Minji’s heart aches for her. God, she wants to kiss her so badly. Maybe being friends with two of the most gorgeous (assumed: heterosexual) women in her life when all she wants to do is to pepper them with smooches was not her smartest move.

But she’s in too deep now and there’s simply no way out. (And maybe Minji would rather the stabbing pain of her unrequited love than not being able to uphold their beauty in her eyes.)

Their lanky friend just chuckles, her big eyes disappearing into curves, and Minji’s gut twists along with it. “Maybe if you stop stabbing your ice cream against your mouth and actually _eat_ it, you wouldn’t make such a mess,” she scolds lightly again, and Yeojoo’s bottom lip protrudes into a small pout. Minji is slowly losing her mind.

A tiny huff, indignant. “Well. Maybe I want someone to wipe ice cream off my lips, you know?” she says in a tiny voice as all logic throws itself out of the window, and Minji is _this_ close to bawling her eyes out in a McDonald’s.

Damn, she doesn’t even _like_ McDonald’s, but she’s here because Yeojoo insisted on getting a soft serve, and Dodo, as always, is happy for any opportunity to leech off Yeojoo and steal everyone’s fries.

The girl with the long hair snorts, letting out a laugh that sounds almost like the bark of a tiny canine, and covers her mouth with her palm. “That’s such a cringey thing to say.”

Yeojoo glares at her. “You wiped my lips though, didn’t you?” she asks, challenging, and Dodo’s scornful grin fades into a deadpan. She kneads her fingers together. Minji lets out a sigh.

“I’m doing it because I care for you, you dimwit.”

“Well? What if I had wanted Minji to do it for me?”

The short-haired brunette frowns at the sudden mention of her name. She hadn’t thought of herself as part of the conversation, merely the bystander. “Me?” she points at herself with the tip of a fry, and Dodo laughs.

“Yeah,” Yeojoo huffs, “what if I had wanted you to wipe ice cream off my lips?” And for some reason, she doesn’t sound like she’s joking, which honestly terrifies Minji.

“I would’ve done it if only you asked, I guess?” is what the brunette settles with, because no one needs the internal monologue of her preferring to wipe the ice cream off with her own lips.

That seems to be enough motivation for the smaller girl, because she holds up the ice cream cone in her left hand, and aims straight for her mouth, smothering her lips with the sweet, creamy confectionery.

They all blink in unison, Minji a little stunted because she still doesn’t understand what’s unfolding before her very eyes.

“Wipe it,” Yeojoo says, and it doesn’t sound much like a request. Minji doesn’t know how to react, and before she knows it, Dodo is stuffing a piece of napkin in her hand (which is clammy and sweaty at this stage). “Just wipe it. She likes to be babied, this brat,” Dodo lectures, though there is no disapproval in her voice, and Minji struggles to think straight.

It’s so stupid. They’ve had sleepovers and she’s literally had Yeojoo in her arms before, ear pressing against her chest as she undoubtedly hears the way her heart thumps restlessly beneath her ribs, yet this.

This seems so… intimate. And she’s so close to her lips, those pink, thin, soft ones that Yeojoo chews on when she gets frustrated, the lips that Minji has thought about for more than is appropriate for a platonic friendship. Her fingers are trembling and the worst part about that is how the both of them are staring at her, like they’ll drill a hole in her face if they looked hard enough.

Minji a panicked gay? Sounds almost like a myth, but when faced with Yeojoo’s soft pink cheeks and Dodo’s intense gaze, Minji can’t help but feel under pressure.

But her mission in life is to put that stunning smile on Yeojoo’s face, so she gathers all her resolution and exhales loudly as she cranes over the table, napkin sweeping across Yeojoo’s unblemished skin softly.

Like a tease, the smaller girl sticks out her lower lip, the fleshy cushion springing at the touch, and Minji cries on the inside. Fuck, she’s beautiful.

She’s managed to get rid of the ice cream without experiencing a mental breakdown (yet), and as Minji gestures to return to her seat, Yeojoo suddenly jerks forward. The pad of her thumb brushes across her lip, and the short-haired girl lets out a gasp.

It’s smooth and warm, and she wants nothing but to press her own lips against them, feel her clam up a little bit when she’s nervous, and then relax under her touch. (There is a bullet-pointed list of things she’d like to do to Yeojoo and Dodo, but such a list is privy only to her and her addled brain.)

The natural reaction to that is obviously to freeze halfway across the table, and she can hear the way Dodo is snickering under her breath. This isn’t normal, is it? It isn’t normal to overreact upon touching your good friend’s lips, is it?

Regaining her sanity, Minji clears her throat and shivers as she places her butt back on the seat, still feeling a little shaky.

“Hey, you okay? It was just wiping ice cream, sis,” she sounds condescending, her eyes dancing with humour, and Minji scowls. But Dodo is breathtakingly beautiful, and her efforts in being angry at the tall girl last for all but 0.3 seconds.

“Shut up,” she mutters angrily, and of course Dodo has to throw her long arm around her shoulder, pulling her in with a shit-eating grin on her face.

“There, there. I knew you were whipped for her, but I didn’t think it was this bad.”

Minji frowns at the statement, tilting her head to the side to look at the Literature major, who just regards her with a knowing smile and then an impish wink. Perhaps Minji’s heart breaks into smaller shards that she can never piece back together. Another part of her starts the alarm, a disco of blaring red and striking danger in screaming beeps at the back of her mind.

Oh shit, _she knows_. Which should not be so surprising considering Minji is the least subtle person on Earth, and Dodo knows a thing or two about reading the atmosphere.

That means that during their sleepovers, when they’re all collapsed in a pile of three in various degrees of alcohol intoxication, Dodo _knows_ that longing look in Minji’s eyes when she looks at Yeojoo is more than just affection for a friend.

Maybe she even knows the extent of Minji’s infatuation with Dodo herself, and the idea brings a sour sensation to the back of her throat. The last thing she wants is for them to become uncomfortable around her, which is why she’s kept her mouth shut for the longest time.

But that doesn’t seem to be an option for Dodo at all as she pokes Minji in her cheeks and shakes her head. “Doesn’t change anything, you know that, right?”

Does Minji know that? Maybe, maybe not. But she’d rather not run the risk of finding out.

“Yeah,” she says quietly, glad that Dodo at least has the decency to be discreet, and Yeojoo is still happily slurping at her ice cream cone. When she sighs and slouches, there Dodo is, her skinny lanky frame holding her back up, and Minji thinks that the lines between them are starting to blur.

Still doesn’t make her an optimist, but a polyamorous lesbian should be allowed to dream.

*****

Yeojoo is adorable. In the way that makes Dodo want to claw out her face and dedicate her firstborn to her. (Maybe a little extreme, but when you analyse a copious number of plays during your time in university, you tend to become quite dramatic.)

There’s something about the girl that makes Dodo’s heart burn with a desire to protect, and it is undoubtedly one of her biggest charms when it comes to men who somehow have something to prove ( _yuck_ ). Perhaps it is in her smaller stature or her petite build that makes her seem so vulnerable, and her wondrous eyes turning into slits as she smiles are probably not much help either.

Yet Yeojoo is the toughest cookie she knows, so strong and brave and resilient, a girl with nothing to lose and never afraid to speak her mind. It throws Dodo off, but also earns Yeojoo an unwavering place of respect in her heart.

Minji, Yeojoo, Dodo. They seem like such different people on first sight, interested in such different things (with the exception of makeup, because God knows they are all obsessed), yet they never seem to bore each other out, always a poke here and there, a reassuring hug littered in between their interactions.

What kind of significance does Dodo play between their dynamics, she isn’t sure, but perhaps her position in their friendship matters little. She likes Minji and Yeojoo, most of the time equally, but sometimes she wants to squish Yeojoo so hard she runs out of breath, and other times she wants to just watch Minji sleep, feel the soft rises and falls of her torso against her own bony frame, run her long fingers in her soft bob.

Being around beautiful people is so difficult, Dodo thinks, and when boys flock over to her in awe at her beauty, she often wonders why. It isn’t that she didn’t have faith in her own looks -- no, Dodo _knows_ she’s hot -- but more so at how the boys never seemed to find the same interest in her two close friends.

(Okay, other than Minji, who everyone knows as a proud lesbian and who comes out as and when she likes.)

She observes closely the way Minji behaves around them, how she gets flustered for a quarter of a second whenever they initiate skinship before eventually calming down, and plays with their hair, as if she didn’t just have a miniscule freakout.

It’s mostly entertaining to watch, but also a little sad. Minji probably wants to keep mum about her feelings for as long as she can bear.

And Dodo doesn’t know how else to make this all better when her heart falters every two steps of the way when either of them do anything. So she’s probably just as unbelievably weak for these two as Minji is for the both of them, and it feels like a merry-go-round, like a big wild goose chase, when all they’ve wanted is sitting in front of them, waiting for them to grab.

*****

“Do you know? This school has a club thing called F4. Handsome and talented sons of large conglomerate owners. Maybe you’ll finally find your match.” Nope, Minji doesn’t sound bitter, not at all.

“I’m not interested,” Dodo says quietly, playing with her nails.

“Liar.”

“I’m not interested in men.”

Doubting her own hearing, Minji lets out an unconscious _huh_ , one that doesn’t go unnoticed by Dodo. The slim girl flips her hair to the side and adjusts her posture.

“I said, I’m not interested in men,” she repeats, slower this time, like she’s talking to a child, and Minji pulls a face that shouldn’t be allowed on anyone’s face.

There is a pregnant pause, Minji still digesting the chunk of information that’s been thrown her way, and Dodo can almost hear the parcel of saliva slipping down her throat as she gulps.

“What does that even mean? Are you ace?” she questions, looking thoroughly confused, eyebrows knitting together. Dodo has the gall to laugh.

“That  means I don’t like men. What’s so difficult to understand about that?” She shrugs, flicking dirt from her trimmed fingernails, and the air shifts as Minji turns her whole torso to face her.

“Okay… but so, what do you like?” The frown seems to be tattooed into her skin, and Dodo takes a small gleam at her frustrated expression, the ends of her lips pulling up.

“Ice cream. Shrimp? Snacks are nice. Also lip tints and --”

“You know what I mean,” Minji sounds annoyed, her voice coming out in exasperated huffs, and Dodo doesn’t seem to care about how Minji’s heart is hammering violently against her chest in stuttered beats for a revelation she’d never thought would be true, like her wildest dreams realised.

(It takes her but another second to realise that even if Dodo liked girls, it didn’t mean that she likes Minji.)

The ends of her lips folded down in an unimpressed look, Dodo sinks into the seat, nervousness making her skin crawl.

“I like girls?” It sounds like a question, like she’s unsure, though Dodo has been anything but unsure for the past four years. It turns dead silent, the sound of a pin dropping would probably ring through their ears like the blast of a loudspeaker, and Dodo struggles to keep her breathing even.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Minji asks, a hint of something else simmering beneath her soft voice. The taller girl shakes her head, her shoulders moving along. “I don’t know. It just… never came up in conversation?”

She doesn’t know what to expect, but it most certainly isn’t _this_. Minji has her hands curled into balled fists, and she is literally shaking like a leaf, still wearing a look of utter dumbfoundedness.

“You’re a lesbian.” Means it like a statement, spits it out like she tastes bitter on the tip of her tongue. Dodo looks over to her in befuddlement, and Minji’s cheeks are a bright red, ready to blow.

“Yes?” Still sounds like a question, only now it’s because she doesn’t know why her coming out has warranted this reaction. Surely she must be happy to find a comrade in Dodo, and especially since she’s so unbelievably in love with her, she must be delighted to know that Dodo swings the same way.

But Minji, as she always does, takes Dodo by surprise, and the next words come out in a harsh hiss. “You didn’t think to tell me that? Your best friend? Or was I not your best friend?”

Dodo’s forehead creases, a boiling kind of fury gurgling within her. “I don’t have to answer anything to you? You’re not my mother, and not even my mother knows I’m gay.”

It is the indignance, Dodo realises. It is the indignance that Dodo hadn’t thought to tell her two best friends of this supposedly pivotal piece of information, as if it provide more clarity about the person that she already is.

“Are you seriously picking a fight with me because I didn’t come out to you?” Steam exits Dodo in heavy billows, and Minji has a nasty attitude to match.

“Just me? What about Yeojoo? Do you think we weren’t worthy enough to know about something so important?” Minji screeches now, incredulous, and Dodo properly snaps, every intention to bite.

“Stop making this about yourself, will you? Why should I have to come out just because? Am I obliged to tell you about the people I like?”

And she seems so full of herself, so proud, like she didn’t make a mistake, like this is all because Minji is an asshole.

Knowing that she has the tendency to say some untrue and harsh words in her anger, Minji inhales deeply, and Dodo holds her gaze, a fierceness in them that she has never seen before.

And sure, she’s upset, anger off the charts, but it’s the kind of look she’s never wanted to bear witness to in her entire life, not in Dodo’s normally sleepy and shiny big eyes.

Bracing herself and reining all of it in, Minji pretends like she’s taking the moral high ground, and stands up from where she is. Dodo has no desire to give chase, and perhaps that’s for the better.

Blinking a couple more times, Minji snatches her lunchbox from the table and stalks off, her footsteps a little heavier than normal, and Dodo is left sitting there with her lunch.

Yeojoo returns from the stores with a tray filled with food, and rushes over at the sight of a crestfallen Dodo.

“What’s going on? Where’s Minji?” she asks as she places the tray onto the table, and Dodo takes one brief look at her before the tears start to pour.

“Oh, what’s wrong, what’s wrong, sweetie?” Equally flustered, Yeojoo takes a seat beside the tall girl and pulls her into her tiny frame, lets her tearful face press against her blouse. “What’s happening?”

*****

“I see you’ve found my existence worthy again.”

“Shut up, Jooheon,” Minji snaps, resting her head against her arms. She’s really trying to not be so angry, but the memory of how Dodo brought up her interest in girls so nonchalantly irritates her. How could she say it all so casually, like it didn’t matter?

As if they weren’t best friends who tell each other everything? (Minji could write a list of her kinks and her favourite indie films, but not the fact that she likes girls?)

The fact that Dodo is the most insightful of the three of them, and probably has seen just how glaringly in love Minji is with the both of them adds fuel to the fire. Was she just happy to see Minji suffer in her futile pursuits, of being constantly disappointed at the fact that they would never go anywhere? Looked over at Minji pandering after the both of them almost mockingly, and trample on her heart like that?

Minji wants answers, but it comes full circle, and she’s left with more questions.

“So, no cute girlfriends?” Jooheon asks, resting his face in his hands as he looks over at Minji. Sure they still see each other every week during class, and still sit next to each other during tutorials, but Minji never voluntarily hangs out with him anymore.

Jooheon’s not that bothered by it.

“I thought I told you to shut up,” she hisses, and Jooheon backs away with a roll of his eyes, putting his hands up.

“Yeah, okay, sorry to step on your tail, Your Highness.”

Minji deflates at the statement and reduces herself into a boneless pile by the table, burying her face in her hands. “Am I really such a dick?”

Jooheon narrows his eyes. “Context, miss.”

With a deafening sigh, Minji starts explaining everything (minus the bit where she’s madly in love with her two best friends because Jooheon makes these hand signals prompting her to fast-forward, and it’s not like he hasn’t heard her gush about them approximately a hundred times before). Of course, Minji seasons the story with small anecdotes of her coming out story and her heartfelt emotions on the matter, so objectivity is fairly neglected during her rendition. Jooheon listens quietly, sipping on his iced coffee slowly as he nods, takes it in calmly.

“So you went off at her?” Jooheon asks. There is no judgement in his voice, but Minji pulls up all her fences. “I’m supposed to be her best friend, Jooheon, you don’t think I should have been angry? What did she say? She said she didn’t have anything to answer to me?”

He takes in a small breath. “I know you don’t want to hear this…” Glancing at her, mildly frightened for his life. “But she’s right.”

And there is a hint of a possibility that Minji knows he’s right, and that she had been an asshole the whole time, because she lets out a groan and flops back onto the table.

Jooheon takes it as his cue to continue. “She told you she hadn’t even come out to her mum yet?”

There is a disgruntled sound from the brunette, and she sighs against her forearm. “That just means she’s not ready. Not everyone is you, Minji. Not everyone is brought up by supportive parents who provide them with a safe environment that make them feel comfortable with coming out. And I know. I know your sexuality is important to you, and surely it must be important to Dodo too. But maybe,” he blinks, “maybe just not as much.”

She lets out a long and tired exhale. “I’m just being selfish?”

The blonde boy nods reluctantly. “I’m afraid so.”

She seemingly dissolves into her seat, sinking further down. “I don’t know, Jooheon. I’ve had plenty of friends who weren’t ready to come out to their parents and I always told them to take it slow and do it when they want to, but just…” She sits back straight and gesticulates wildly with her arms, only to make them fall in her lap in ultimate defeat.

“I guess I was only able to say all that in the position of someone who already knew? And --”

“And Dodo is really important to you, and you thought her not telling you meant you weren’t as important to her as she is to you?” Jooheon interjects helpfully, his eyebrows hiking up in a sorry offer, and she holds his empathetic gaze. An extended lament.

“I guess so.”

“Well.” He shrugs lightly, returning to his caffeinated beverage, as if Minji isn’t experiencing a whole whirlwind of emotions. Jooheon is capable of steadying people like that. She likes to think it’s a talent. “You know what you should do.”

And Minji doesn’t really know, but she does know that she really doesn’t want to lose Dodo. Not at all.

But for now, she needs to devise a better plan to try to salvage all of this.

*****

The plan goes down the drain.

“Lee Minji. What the fuck have you done?”

The tables have turned. Minji is halfway into her sandwich, Jooheon is away getting himself a drink when Yeojoo strides up to her desk with her hands on her hips.

She’s tiny, but Minji knows better than to underestimate her based on just her stature.

Looking up at the other girl who wrenches her heart and wrings it dry on a minutely basis, Minji struggles to deny that the blazing ball of fury in her eyes is much like a javelin through her chest. All along she’s been so unbelievably smitten by Yeojoo’s zeal, that growing bundle of energy in her ballooning her personality and making her so charming. It seems ironic that the arrows that she’s safely hid behind as she looks over in awe before now have their heads pointed at her instead.

Her eyes blinking unevenly, Minji speaks with her mouth full. “Fwat dit ah do?”

Yeojoo is very, very cross, and is it so wrong for Minji to think that she looks so sexy right now? The creases in her forehead deepen, and Minji is aware that it is very wrong indeed.

“You know what you did. Why is Dodo crying and refusing to talk?”

Minji takes a moment to regain herself before mirroring the frown on Yeojoo’s face. “She’s crying?”

And sure, Dodo is a bit on the dramatic side, but she cries at dog movies and sad romance films and the death of a character in a book. Her tears are mostly shed for alternate fictional universes, and Minji doesn’t remember seeing Dodo cry at all from anything that happened in their lives.

The idea makes her uneasy.

“Bawling her eyes out,” Yeojoo adds, knowing that Minji is feeling the guilt run all over her, and it is a tactic well-played. The bob-haired girl gulps down her food and Yeojoo is regarding her with so much contempt.

She’s really fucked up, hasn’t she? Just three days ago they were laughing about a meme and swooning over some girl group comeback, and today Yeojoo is standing here looking at Minji like she’s subhuman, Dodo is crying somewhere because Minji’s done something stupid, and well, everything is going to shit.

God, Minji thinks, sometimes she just wishes she could be anyone else but herself. Her and her stupid mouth, letting it run, as if words aren’t armed with sharp edges that hurt as much as spears and knives do.

“I --”

“I thought you liked her,” Yeojoo says, her expression morphing into one of confusion, and Minji stares at her, dumbfounded.

“What.” Her mouth goes dry, and a million thoughts are spiralling in that tiny brain of hers, fumbling into one another. What the hell did she just say?

“Well. I thought you had a crush on her.” Yeojoo chews on her lower lip. “Was I wrong?”

Minji doesn’t know what is right or wrong now. Did Dodo tell her? Why would Dodo tell her that? How is that even possible? Nothing makes sense?

“N-no, you’re not wro -- what?” Minji tries her best to understand, but she can’t wrap her head around this whole kerfuffle, and there is a numbing sensation at the back of her skull spreading to the front. What. The. Flying. Fuck.

Yeojoo stares at her, puzzled. “You… like her, right?”

Minji makes a face and reevaluates her lesbianism. Last time she checked, she still has a major crush on the both of them, so she’s right, after all.

“Ho -- how?” Minji narrows her eyes, and she wonders if she’s been secretly spied on by the both of them. How hilarious the FBI agent meme seems now. Even an FBI agent wouldn’t sound like such a bad idea. Sure, he’d be aware of how sickeningly in love Minji is with these two girls, but at least it wouldn’t actually compromise any friendships.

Yeojoo presses her lips into a thin line. “You’re a very obvious person, Lee Minji. And I’m not exactly blind.”

Minji is about two seconds away from resigning herself to fate. There is the longest pause, and then an even longer exhale before she looks down at her own knees. Stupid egg sandwich. She hates everything and everyone now. She’s made Dodo cry, and they both know of her crush(es?) and Jooheon is taking too long to buy his drink and everything is crap. She hates everything.

“I guess I’m the blind one then. What the fuck, Lee Minji.”

She can hear the way Yeojoo lets out a sigh, and then the shadow that was overcast her minimises. Yeojoo squats beside her and tilts her head sideways. Minji tries her best to divert her attention, but Yeojoo’s skin is fair and clear, she’s so pretty, and she’s wearing this forlorn look on her face that makes Minji’s heart swell.

“What happened, Min?”

The nickname brings it to the verge of explosion.

Biting on the insides of her cheeks, Minji shakes her head. “I fucked up.”

Yeojoo rolls her eyes. “I’m aware. What exactly did you do?”

*****

To say that she’s nervous is an understatement. Apparently it took Yeojoo a shit ton of convincing to finally get Dodo to agree to meet her, so if she’s going to get some iced water splashed on her face later on, it’s only what she deserves.

(She thinks this, but she still moves the jug of water closer to herself, as if that’s going to stop Dodo from emptying it on her head in anger.)

Palms sweaty and cold perspiration breaking out at the back of her neck, Minji can think of the many ways this meeting could end, most of them horrible, including Dodo not wanting to ever breathe the same air as her again, while some of them are unrealistically optimistic.

Minji’s general tactic is to keep her mouth shut for as long as possible, because she’s a knucklehead that can’t seem to stop herself from saying stupid things. So perhaps not saying anything at all is a fairer alternative to everyone present.

She catches her eye from far away. Perhaps it is how tall she is (see: model proportions) or maybe Minji has just been keeping a lookout for her for the past 20 minutes that she’s been sitting here. She’s nervous, okay? She gets to places a lot earlier than she needs to when she’s nervous, and spends all the time thinking of silly things.

Should she wave her hand to catch her attention? Is that stupid?

But Dodo seems to find her anyway, and her expression is blank, no trace of humour, but also none of the hatred Minji was expecting. That’s some decent tradeoff, she thinks. At least she’s not shooting venom from her eyes.

Adjusting her napkin, Minji sits back up straight. She doesn’t know how she should greet her. _Hi_? Too casual? _Hello?_ Too formal? _What’s up, girl?_ Definitely a mistake.

“Hey,” she says sotto voce, and Minji looks up at her. She looks tired. She doesn’t look horrible (not that Minji thinks she’s capable of that), but like she’s been troubled for a while. The thought that Minji might be the one to have brought this effect onto her makes the javelin in her chest drill itself further in. Wow, she really does hate herself.

“Hey,” she attempts to say it in the most nonchalantly way possible, and Dodo offers her a tight smile before taking the seat in front. Her big eyes flitter open and shut slowly. She seems nervous.

“What do you want, Minji?” Dodo, always straightforward and direct, and one of the things that make her so attractive. (Minji thinks everything she is and does is attractive, but that’s not really the crux right now.)

Sucking in a deep breath, she glances furtively at the taller girl, who pours herself a glass of water. That really unnerves Minji. She thinks about the water being dumped over her head, and a shiver runs down her spine.

But she shakes the thought out of her head, and looks straight at Dodo in her checkered dress, her long hair plastered over the side of her face, her pink, soft lips pursed into a subconscious pout.

“I just --” Minji breathes again, tries to find her voice. “I --” A huge inhale. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” She stares down at the tablecloth, and the bumble of the half-empty restaurant reduces to a buzz, and then silence in her head.

Dodo holds her tongue, but she is looking at Minji, like she’s anticipating more. The stress leaves her in waves as her shoulders sag, and she swallows nervously. The tablecloth seems to be moving. Or is she the one shaking?

“I just --” Another breath. “I’m sorry. I was being selfish.”

Dodo is still staring at her.

“I -- you’re so important to me, Dodo. So _so_ important. Both you and Yeojoo, in ways that you cannot even begin to comprehend.”

There is a trace of a smile on Dodo’s face, like she knows something, and then in a whisper. “I have an idea or two.”

Of course she does. Of course they both do, because Minji is the biggest idiot of them all, and somehow keeps ramming her head against a wall even though every other force in the world is trying to pull her away.

She doesn’t comment on that, because this isn’t about how in love she is with her best friends. This is about her acting like a child, thinking that she had some control over someone else’s life, as if they owed her something -- anything at all.

She gulps. “I just -- I felt so annoyed, I guess. Sexuality, to me, is a gigantic part of me. I guess you could even say it defines the person that I am?” Gauges Dodo’s reaction, and realising that she’s not showing much of one at all, continues.

“I realised that I liked girls when I was really young, and my parents? They were cool about it. I think they knew even earlier than I did, which was really helpful and supportive, and that’s how I grew up being so unapologetic about my preference. And I know it’s selfish, but because it meant so much to me, and I told you guys so early on that I thought I would be returned the same favour. It just --”

Dodo nods from the end of her peripheral vision, and Minji thinks she’s gripping at the tablecloth with her fists. Her heart aches. She would like to explain some more, but Dodo looks like she finally has something to say.

They’re faced with a long pregnant pause before Dodo speaks, her voice small and a little afraid. “You can’t hold me to the same standards, Min. I…” She heaves, wetness in her eyes. “My parents. They aren’t open to this kind of stuff. They’d think I’m a freak. Probably get me to go to some therapy to try and ‘fix’ something that isn’t wrong, you know?” Her voice breaks by just a fraction, and Minji feels it reflected in her gut.

It sucks to know that someone wouldn’t accept Dodo for the person that she is, and she’s heard a million stories from the people around her, but to know that someone that she cherishes so dearly experiencing this…

Minji doesn’t know what to feel, but a large boulder takes its place atop her chest, squeezing every last bit of breath from her lungs.

The next words hurt. “I’m still me, aren’t I? Still Chae Dodo, still your best friend, regardless of who and what I like?” Her lower lip trembles when she speaks in the softest whisper, and it fractures every single organ Minji has to spare.

She stands up in the middle of the diner and kneels on a single knee next to Dodo’s chair, ignoring the many eyes on them, at Dodo on the brink of tears, and Minji looking like she’s initiating the marriage proposal of the century.

She holds her hands in both of hers, and grabs onto them tightly. Not enough to hurt, but hopefully enough to tell Dodo that she wants nothing but for her to be happy, regardless of her sexuality, and regardless of whether or not that happiness is with Minji.

“No, of course, I’m sorry. I’m stupid. I’m so fucking childish. You’re right, you don’t owe me anything, and you’re still you. Still Chae Dodo, beautiful, amazing, and filled with so much love. I’m sorry. I still love you, I’m sorry.” Minji doesn’t know if she has enough sorrys to go around, but she’ll keep saying it until it mends them back together.

And when Dodo wipes at her tears with the back of her hand and lets Minji squeeze into her tiny seat for one, resting her head against her shoulder, Minji knows that it is now her responsibility to be the defender of Dodo’s heart, whether or not Dodo wants it.

*****

Things are normal. More or less normal.

Minji’s heart is still racing as Yeojoo and Dodo are splayed over her queen-sized bed, their heads resting on her stomach and thigh respectively, looking at their phones with great focus. But maybe she lets the racing roam a little more free, and she’s less bothered about any of them possibly hearing its deafening thumps.

“What should we have for dinner?” Dodo asks, shifting her whole body so that her face is squished against Minji’s thigh, and maybe her heart does a leap that she isn’t ready for. She holds her palms against her chest in defence, and Dodo’s eyes are twinkling with laughter.

She hates her. (And hates that she can’t really hate her. God damn it.)

“Go home and eat your own dinner,” Minji complains, because maybe Dodo is laughing at her with those eyes of hers, and maybe she’s a bit sulky.

Yeojoo props herself further up Minji’s torso, but she’s so light she barely makes a dent. Minji stops second-guessing herself and moves her fingers towards her bangs, brushing them away from her face.

Yeojoo’s finger on her screen doesn’t stop scrolling, and she hums excitedly at the thought of dinner.

“Maybe we should have stew,” she suggests. Minji makes a small sound of approval, but Dodo is not having it. The edge of her shoulder against the plush of the mattress, she looks back up at Minji, a little affronted at the two mounds of flesh that are in the way of seeing her face.

“Why do you even have boobs?” Dodo asks, complaints about dinner all but forgotten. Minji rolls her eyes. “What does that even mean?”

“It means you have boobs and I am envious,” Dodo says with a huff, and Minji chuckles as she shakes her head in disbelief. Yeojoo laughs as well, though hers die down a little sooner, and a whisper of “yeah I wish I had boobs too” elicits another round of giggling from the three.

This is comfortable, Minji thinks. It’s nice, the body heat of her two best friends pressed into her flesh. They are soft and malleable and fit perfectly in a puzzle of three, and even if their progress is anything but romantic, Minji doesn’t think she minds.

If the fiasco with Dodo taught her anything, it was that it was okay to take it slow.

And slow it was. Minji has learnt that her affections didn’t need to bring her places. It was okay for them to remain as affections, as long as the subjects of her affections returned them.

Moreover, it takes a lot to navigate a relationship like theirs. They would seek to find balance between three, making sure no one feels neglected or left out, and that the bonds between any two of them worked as strongly as it did with any other two.

As Minji takes her thoughts for a ride, she doesn’t realise Dodo and Yeojoo leaving their permanent places on her torso and found their way next to her in a sandwich.

“Mmm?” Minji asks as she looks on her left, then her right, and when the both of them lean in to place a soft kiss on either side of her cheeks, her face breaks into a grin so wide she’s sure it would stay stitched into her skin for days.

So maybe she becomes bold and turns to her left, and in the face of Yeojoo’s pretty almond eyes, her tall nose, her thin lips, she swoops in and kisses her gently, in the way she’s always wanted to: protective, soft, and with the burst of a spark with the potential to burn into more.

And on her right, Dodo seems to be waiting, a smidgen of glee in her bright, big eyes, a smirk tainting the edges of her full, luscious lips. Minji kisses her too, heatedly, a little harder, teasing, almost, and when she bites onto Dodo’s lower lip and makes her gasp, she feels her own lips curl into a smile.

So she lies back on her back, staring at her beige-coloured ceiling and the fan spinning in circles, the goofiest beam on her face. She can’t help it.

And maybe right now she can’t really call them anything more than her cute best friends that she kisses occasionally, but she’s happy with that.

“Hey, so what should we have for dinner?” Yeojoo asks again, and she moves, burying the tip of her nose into the crook of Minji’s neck, emanating floral in surges.

“Dunno,” Dodo replies, evidently not ready to oppose any menu choices at the moment, and snuggles closer to Minji, fruity and tangy wafting off her, intoxicating.

Minji ignores the question about their dinner selection and indulges herself in the moment. Lesbian Goddess has blessed her, yet again, for the best loves in life happen in threes, and Minji wouldn’t ask for anything else.

_“Hey, so what do you think of eating me out today?”_

_“Can you please shut up?”_

**Author's Note:**

> wanted (needed) to post this before the next episode of mxray showed and we would have more fem!mx characters to write (hooray!)  
> this fic has been sitting here since dodo happened, and i picked it up after a long, long time, so if the writing style seems to get less humorous as we go, that's because i've gotten more emo. it be like that sometimes.  
> thank you everyone who hyped this up on twitter when i posted some snippets; would not have been able to write anything if not for your support, so thank you. i'm still trying to get back to writing and returning to my original writing style, so please bear with me if my recent works have been sub-par. constructive criticism is always welcome.
> 
> as usual, comments and kudos are appreciated!  
> twt: @kihyunghyuks


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